Users Don’t Realize Their Mobile Phone’s Capabilities

According to a story from TechRadar, users aren’t fully realizing the capabilities of their mobile phones. As it turns out, many folks don’t realize that the smartphone in their pocket is more than a phone - it’s a portable computer that you can easily customize with applications that suite your life.


::Nokia N97::



Skype commissioned a survey to assess the market for add-on applications for mobile handsets. Amongst their findings, they realized:

62% do not yet view their mobile device as an extension of their computer.
Only 23% feel that they have more or the same level of control over their mobile device as they have over their computer.
67% want to be able to choose their mobile applications for themselves, rather than have their carriers choose for them
My opinion is that consumers are too busy to know that their smartphones and other handsets can be given all new capabilities with targeted applications. For example, installing an application such as Nokia Sports Tracker will provide you great statistics on your workouts and installing an application such as Truphone would cut down on international dialing costs and SMS fees.

Mobile software vendors should market hard to inform smartphone users that software options exist. Apple iPhone users know this because the App Store makes installing 3rd party applications on the iPhone easy and fun.

With new application markets forthcoming for Nokia, Android, and RIM, the wheels should get greased soon, resulting in more mobile consumers installing applications on their handsets.